Pillow Fights

I’m not sure when or how pillows morphed from sleep accessories into mandatory furniture accoutrements. When I was a kid our house had a total of seven pillows. My parents had 3 (king bed), my sister had 2 (double bed), my brother and I each had one for our single beds. Last week I had to fight through seven pillows (not counting the cushions) just to sit on my couch. We have three couches. A quick count of the house pillow army – over 50! There are pillows on the couches, chairs, fireplace hearth, and on the beds (although I can’t see them I’m assuming there are beds underneath the pillows unless they’re levitating). But the pillow mother lode is on the master bed. On any given night I have a ten-minute MMA fight with 12 pillows just to climb under the covers. Then I’m stuck there because navigating through a room strewn with vanquished pillows, in the dark, is not safe. To make it worse, I’ve never liked making the bed. I like it even less now that I have to follow a six-page instruction manual to ensure proper placement of the various pillows. Apparently, the blue pillows and the gold pillows have a longstanding feud and can’t be touching each other, and head pillows go behind the sham pillows (I can never remember that). The phenomenon is not unique to my house. I’ve started secretly counting pillows at friends’ houses and the numbers are staggering. I can only imagine upcoming Mor Furniture commercials – “Buy 14 pillows, get the couch for free!”